The Incredible Shrinking Fox
by The Real Bug-53
Summary: During a ZPD raid, Nick is struck with a tranq dart and is promptly sent to the ER. When he awakes, he is informed that the dart injected him with an unidentified serum and he is now slowly shrinking in size. Now, he and Judy must bear the emotional weight of the situation while hoping that a cure for Nick's condition is found before it's too late.


**(Note: This story was ******written by Cimar of Turalis/WildeHopps on **commission for me, and he has allowed me to share it.)**

**Since getting into the Zootopia fandom, I have seen many pieces of fanart based on the concept of Nick Wilde being shrunk down to tiny proportions. The idea seemed to have real potential to me, but from what I could find it always seemed to have been played for laughs more than anything else. Very seldom was the more dramatic side of the concept explored, which was a shame IMO. I did consider writing a story like this on my own, but lack of creativity is alas one of my biggest weaknesses. I jotted down a few little ideas for it, but it never went anywhere beyond that. So when Cimar announced he was opening up writing commissions, I decided that if I didn't have the ability to make something out of this idea, maybe a more experienced Zootopia fanfic author would be up for the task.**

**Words cannot express how thrilled I was to read the completed project, it was everything I wanted to see from this idea and then some. I can't thank Cimar enough for bringing so much life to my idea that I could not. If you're a Zootopia fan, I strongly encourage you check out his other work if you can. (Especially if you like wholesome Judy and Nick fluff.)**

* * *

"Stick to the plan, mammals. I want to see you all after the fact."

Exiting the SWAT vehicle, the armored clad mammals of Precinct One approached the target building. Two smaller officers waited by the decrepit facade, motioning for them forward as the head of SWAT, a tiger named Fangmeyer, reached them.

"Good to see you guys finally made it," the fox snarked, with a ready grin on his face and twinkle in his eyes. "The wait was almost criminal."

Groans came from the gathered mammals, as well as a few chuckles. "What's the situation, Wilde and Hopps?"

The rabbit spoke up, explaining what they'd found so far about the derelict, crumbling building. No side or back doors for their mammal to escape from, building was barely structurally sound and the condemned sign over a window was already faded, yellowed and torn.

"We've just been waiting for you guys to show up and grab our jaguar. Don't want another week of parking duty for just going in again so I've been keeping Carrots out here."

"Har har…" Judy replied.

The breech of the building was easy and the eight mammal SWAT team began sweeping rooms, the shouts of 'clear' echoing to the outside where Nick and Judy waited. "Do you think we'll finally catch him this time?" Nick asked, leaning against the building, looking for all intents and purposes unconcerned about what was happening within, though his ears stayed focused towards the building.

"I believe they will," Judy replied. "We've been trying-"

"OFFICER DOWN! TAKE HIM DOWN!"

The shout jolted the pair outside, the two pulling out their tranq guns before taking kneeling positions on either side of the doorframe. "See anything, Nick?"

He shook his head. "Hear anything, Judy?"

Judy trained her ears on the inside. "Not yet, I think they're all upstairs."

_CRRAAAAACKKK!_

A giant, ear-splintering cracking of wood filled the hall in front of them as a rhino from the SWAT team fell through the cracked, wooden floor, a cascade of splinters and dust clouding the area as a dark form burst from the cloud.

Judy and Nick barely had time to fire their tranq guns before a dark blur leapt between them, a paw reaching out towards Nick, swatting the fox away.

"Nick!" Judy jumped to her partner while reloading another dart, firing at the retreating form of the jaguar. A yowl sounded as the dart rang true, though the panther still bolted around a nearby corner and disappeared. "Let's go, Nick!"

The rabbit ran after the fleeing mammal, only to pause as no noise of claws click-clacking behind her sounded. "Nick?"

She turned, her blood running cold as she saw her partner wheezing against the side of the building, plucking a green tipped dart from his shoulder with a trembling paw. "NICK!"

Bolting to his side, she cupped his cheeks in her paws. "Nick, what's wrong? What hurts?" Nick tried to speak, his mouth opening when his eyes rolled back and he slumped against the ground.

"NICK!" 

* * *

A slow feeling of warmth trickled through his body, prickling his insides and fur with twinges of pain and sensations he'd never felt before. Groaning slightly, the tod shook his head slowly, blinking his eyes and hissing at the sudden brightness hitting them.

"He's finally awake, hey don't-!"

A weight hit his chest, a hiccuping sob waking him up almost instantly. Looking down, he saw the cause of the sudden pressure.

Judy. Her arms wrapped around his chest, weeping.

Instinctively he wrapped his arms around the bunny, patting her back. He tried squeaking out a few words of comfort, only for a harsh cough to sound instead.

"It's okay…" he finally croaked. She looked up at him, her eyes bloodshot and a look of worry which Nick felt so didn't belong on her face.

"But…it isn't…" she sounded, worry filling her trembling voice. "Nick…it isn't."

Nick shook his head, grateful when a cup of water was placed in his paw by a nurse, telling him to sip slowly. He did so, the water hitting his raw throat, burning and tingling as he swallowed. "Thanks," he muttered, before smiling at Judy. "I don't think even a super bunny like yourself could have predicted a forecast of it raining rhinos and jaguars."

"It's not that, Nick." Judy's reply had Nick raising an eyebrow. "Nick…it's…" She was rubbing her paws nervously, not daring to look up at her partner. She finally looked at him. "I mean, I wouldn't believe this either unless I've seen it these past two weeks and-"

"Two weeks?" Nick murmured softly, rubbing his shoulder. "What was in that tranq dart?"

"We still don't know," Judy replied. "But…Nick, you're…"

What followed was the most unbelievable story Nick had ever heard in his life. A shrinking agent was injected in him and now he's slowly been growing…smaller? Nick laughed at first; wiping a tear from his eye at the silliness of the prank Judy was trying to pull.

"Come on, Carrots. You have to try better than that."

The look in her eyes finally convinced him that she believed her story, so he placated her. Nick immediately asked to be weighed and measured to comfort the worried doe. Crawling out of bed, he leaned on Judy, thinking that the last time he did this her head hadn't come up to his chin, and walked to the nearby scale. The nurse took his measurements, Nick straining to stand as tall as possible to hit his four foot height, joking about late-in-life bunny growth spurts. That was, until the nurse read off his height.

Three seven...

He was three foot, seven inches tall…five inches short of his actual height.

_It…it can't be…_

"Weigh me," he commanded. "Maybe I just shrunk from being in bed too long without stretching." Nick hopped on the scale, hoping that his 80 pound weight would be there. His knees went weak at the scale's report.

Sixty five pounds.

Thirty minutes later found Nick laying in bed again, staring up at the ceiling, for all intents and purposes unbelieving of what was happening, rationalizing the off measurements. The rest of the day went like that, Judy never leaving his side, doing her best to explain what had been happening at the precinct and with the case. Nick tried his best to listen, he really did, but his brain was busy, wracked with attempts at solutions to why he would be shorter and weigh less. He eventually decided that the scale and measure were simply off, and that this all was a prank by the hospital staff on the fox.

Judy finally bid him goodbye that evening, telling him that if he needed anything, to give her a call. He thanked her, joking about how he'll just yell for her to hear him from across town. She chuckled nervously, before doing something she'd never done before. In a quick motion, she leaned across the bed and placed a gentle kiss against his cheek.

"I'm glad you're awake, Nick," she whispered, a blush filling her ears before she hurriedly escaped from the room, leaving a dumb-founded fox touching the spot she'd kissed.

"At least one good thing came from this prank," he finally whispered, before settling back down for bed for the evening. 

* * *

The next day came, and with it Nick's release from the hospital, as well as another inch off his height. Nick grumbled about 'the continuing prank' as he put on his now baggy uniform, (who had the time to switch his regular uniform with this one he had no clue, but would find them, and prank them back) and the first thing he planned on when getting home was finding his own scale and measuring tape. Reaching his home, Judy and Nick thanked the Zuber driver before Nick searched for a scale. A while later, and frustration at not finding one growing, he stood against the wall and asked Judy to mark his height with a pencil.

The first sign of trouble should have been that she didn't need a stool to do so, yet he shoved that growing, nagging worry aside until they brought out a tape measure he was sure hadn't been altered. After lining it up against the wall and double checking it was level on both ends, Nick's jaw dropped.

Three foot six.

_It's not possible_.

He wasn't sure how the next series of events happened. Later, Judy told him he'd simply slumped to the floor in his too-large clothes and sat like a statue as she hugged him. One thought kept going through his mind.

_This can't be happening…this can't be happening…_

He woke laying on his couch, wondering how he'd gotten there only to find his arms wrapped around something. Barely having to look down, he saw Judy cuddled against him, tear lines staining her cheek fur. The feelings of worry briefly fled in that moment of tenderness as he held her against his chest, wishing that time would simply stop.

But it didn't.

Time marched on, the days kept coming and flying by. And as they fled, one after another, Nick's height dipped as his weight dived. His uniforms didn't fit anymore; neither did any of his clothes. He took it as a jab at his pride when Judy offered him some of her brother's clothes for him to wear. It was a double shot at his heart when they fit almost too snugly, despite the physiological differences between bunnies and foxes.

Each day that passed, Nick and Judy spent more time at the precinct until Nick could no longer take the stares from his coworkers. The pitying glances shot his way; thought to be unseen by the fox's trained eye.

Nick felt them all. The stares, the pathetic gazes…

A month after his departure from the hospital was the day he quit coming in to work. Bogo didn't blame him, nor did Judy. Though it was also the day that was marked by Judy officially being taller than him…without her ears included.

That probably had a larger impact on him deciding to call it quits when he was no longer ahead.

Through it all, Judy rarely left his side, and he could tell the toll it was taking on her. Judy had moved in with him, stating it would be easier to work together that way. Nick hadn't minded, as it let them cuddle as they talked strategies and ideas for finding the jaguar who'd done this to him.

She'd also began spending hours of overtime at the precinct, trying to find the elusive jaguar who'd darted Nick. A tangled web of evidence stood proudly in her office, new threads added daily. She'd even convinced Bogo to put out a citywide mammalhunt alert on the news for the criminal who was slowly costing her partner his life. Through it all her eyes grew more bloodshot, the bags under them increasing until it was Nick taking care of her after her near collapse one frantic day.

Nick couldn't take how she was over-working herself. He hated seeing her so tired, so depressed; those amethyst gems of eyes that had sparkled with life now dully glinting without a spark within. A month after she moved in was the final straw, and when Judy came home from the precinct and the first question she asked was if he was okay, he snapped. A fiery tirade was lashed upon the rabbit, each word hitting like stones pelted from a mob, his concern for her turning into anger at what she was doing to herself. It left him panting like a madmammal, and Judy standing as still as a statue.

"Why don't you just leave me be, rabbit, and take care of yourself for once!" Nick demanded, his voice hoarse from shouting, his fur bristling in quivering rage.

Judy's answer was simple, sweet, and caused the anger within him to crumble.

"Because I love you."

Those four words began something new for the pair. Nick couldn't apologize enough as he fell into her arms, both weeping as they kissed and hugged. The days flew by more easily after that, though that looming fear of just how far Nick would shrink became more glaringly obvious. A week after that moment the pair decided to be married…to enjoy what was potentially left of their lives together as best they could.

Nick's ring eventually slipped from his finger, to him wearing it on his wrist as a bracelet. Throughout it all, the pair tried to keep an air of calm about them.

Though within they were anything but.

At the four month mark, Judy brought home an elephant dollhouse for Nick to live in, as being a rat-sized fox in a bunny sized apartment had become too hard for him to get around. The house was set up in the living room of their apartment, though Nick didn't call it home for long. His body, shrinking for so long couldn't take the intense pressure it exuded on him. His voice became weaker, his eyesight dimmed, and it became more challenging each day for him to move around. It was one bright, sunny day that Judy came home, finding Nick collapsed within his home, his breaths raspy and face pale.

"I will find the cure," he heard her saying over and over as the ambulance took him away. "I will save you."

Judy pulled out the last tricks in her book, bringing her evidence board into Nick's room in order to never leave his side. A few days passed as his vision began blurring, the last image to imprint upon his mind being large, white furred mammals filling the room as what must have been Judy, a gray blur, spoke to a paw of one of the mammals.

After that, all was black. Nick felt lost within himself as his senses fled. Minutes, days, weeks…he couldn't tell what time was anymore as he felt lost; swimming within the vastness of nothingness. Alive…dead…it didn't matter to the fox, as what does a feeling like the passing of moments feel like when one feels outside of time itself? Only the loneliness of nothingness accompanied him.

…and he wasn't even able to feel his own sorrow as it swallowed him. 

* * *

He wasn't sure when it happened. Days, months…eons…nothing seemed to matter to him for a long moment. But yet, as he was lost, swimming in the vast emptiness of his thoughts, a dim light appeared in the distance, growing as he floated towards it. With it came sensations…_feelings…_and tears.

He went towards the light more quickly, crying at the fact that he could cry. That he could_ feel_ once more. If the light was what gave him his emotions back, after spending so much time with nothing, he'd move heaven and earth to reach it.

He moved until he was encompassed by the light, the intensity of it burning his fur and skin. Nick laughed at the pain, joyous that he could even feel once more. Ecstatic at sensations that should have caused him to tremble from pain.

Shapes formed in his vision again. Colors re-emerged from their lengthy hibernation, and he could only weep for joy within his mind at the sensation overload.

And then one day, as the faint echoes of voices were heard for the first time in such a long, _long_, time, Nick opened his eyes.

There, in front of him, was a site that he felt he'd never see again. A smiling angel, a visage of beauty that had him weeping for joy as Judy mouthed two words that brought him hope once more.

"Welcome back."


End file.
